A brake control apparatus conventionally known in the related art operates such that a target braking force is calculated from the stroke of a brake pedal or the master cylinder pressure and such that an on-off valve incorporated therein is controlled to generate a desired braking force by a wheel cylinder. Such an apparatus uses a stroke sensor to detect the stroke of the brake pedal.
When there is any abnormality of the stroke sensor provided for the brake control apparatus, however, it may sometimes be difficult to control the braking with high accuracy. Therefore, in the presence of any abnormality of the stroke sensor, it is considered necessary that the braking control be switched to another mode different from the ordinary mode.
However, the switching of braking control modes is not recommendable where improvement of brake feeling is a primary concern. Proposed as a solution to this problem is a stroke sensor abnormality determining apparatus that does not perform the detection of abnormality of the stroke sensor when the brake pedal is in a position near an end of pedal stroke. This contributes to an improvement on brake feeling (see Patent Document 1, for instance).